Law & Justice

Two nights of rain gives tolerable fireworks outcome

ABC Online is reporting that the Minister Not Responsible, Katy Gallagher, is happy with our behaviour over the Queens Birthday long weekend.

“But if it shows that people are still not doing the right thing, that complaints are increasing, that the community’s really getting intolerant of fireworks, then the Government will have no choice but to move to a ban.”

If it’s based on what the community wants then why not trust it to a plebiscite? Then rabble rousers like me would have nothing to grumble about.

However, I live next to a household of people of Chinese descent. They tend to really let fly with the fireworks for celebrations (i.e. very pretty but very loud) and they also let a few off on Chinese New Year. Do I mind or complain? No.

Do they complain when I get a lâ€™il noisy reliving my teen years with some good old loud rock music and a few beers late into the night? No, they donâ€™t. Nor do they mind when I have parties that START well after midnight (because of the nature of having “after-show” theatre parties). They know it doesn’t happen all that often. Kind of like the June Long Weekend.

Come to think about it, nor do any of the people around the street mind that the guy down the road gets pissed on New Years Eve and breaks out the bagpipes.

Where I live actually seems to me to be a fairly typical Australian traditional street. Yes it’s true that not all the street gets along 100% but we also donâ€™t run to the phone to complain if there is a problem. We tend to knock on the door and let people around us know if there is going to be something on that could affect them before a problem occurs.

Maybe it’s because a call to a local legislative member to get something changed that you donâ€™t like is easier than going to a neighbour and talking about it.

And donâ€™t give me any of that “it’s the times we live in crap”. We create the times we live in, things happen or not very much so because of how we as a community act and react to each other. I shudder to think that Iâ€™m starting to sound like some kind of tree hugger here … and that wasn’t my intent. Just to say that it’s not ALL bad out there in suburbia.